


The Ways We Say: Family

by Evitcani



Series: Drabbles and Prompts [3]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Drabbles, F/M, Gen, M/M, prompts, varies by chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 04:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13092840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evitcani/pseuds/Evitcani
Summary: A set of safe for work miscellaneous prompts about different relationships or the TAZ: Balance characters in general.





	1. A Seat By the Window

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A post-canon snippet of family life after canon.

The glass frosted between the fireplace crackling in the hearth and the rain dancing down its side. Merle drew himself up high enough to draw a smiley face. After a moment, he wrote, ‘ _You look nice today, Taako,_ ’ and settled against the bay window’s pillow seat. He watched the world breath in the heavens, at once dark and vibrant. There had been a time he would have thanked Pan for the gift. 

Now, he opened his journal to write. Life was a gift that only saw gratitude in living. Taako paused on his way past, arms full of books and caught the note. He smiled, snorting and muttering to himself as he walked away. 

Merle laughed and slapped the window seat. “You could say thank you,” he called after Taako. 

“Ain’t need you or a stupid window to tell me the obvious, old man,” Taako shouted back without turning around. 

Merle grumbled in good cheer, writing, ‘ _Taako is a big jerk,_ ’ in his journal and feeling very satisfied by it. He hummed a hymn as he began to paint his story across the pages. No, not his story, their story. 

“Merle, have you seen Angus?!” Magnus interrupted Merle’s thoughts, frantic and worried. Angus, hiding on top of a bookcase with a pile of detective stories, put his fingers to his lips and nodded at Merle. 

Merle nodded back and turned his attention on Magnus. “Can’t say I have,” he lied smoothly. “Kinda busy, could you come back later?”

Magnus looked around worriedly. “Merle, I think I turned him into a goldfish, you have to help me,” he pleaded, looking genuinely worried. 

“What am I gonna do? Heal him back to personhood?” Merle shook his head and scratched his beard. “Taako’s the magic guy, brother. You’d have to ask him.”

Magnus nodded eagerly and took off. Chuckling to himself, he gave Angus a big thumbs up. From the other room, they heard Taako shout, “YOU DID WHAT TO MY SON?!” and covered their mouths to keep from giving up the joke just yet. 

Grinning, Merle went on with writing his story. Taako and Magnus running by out of the corner of his eye, nearly knocking Davenport over. Davenport barely regained his composure, but managed to keep all the hot cocoa in both the mugs. “I hope they wear themselves out soon,” he laughed, leaning up to kiss Merle on the cheek and hefting himself onto the other side of the seat. 

“Thanks, hun.” Merle shifted his legs just to lay one on top of Davenport’s, taking a sip of the cocoa. “They’ll wind down soon. It’s raining, so it’s not like they can run around outside.”

Davenport nodded and turned to watch the rain, mug in hand. Merle watched him for a moment, both different men than they had been on the Starblaster. The silent years Davenport had lived were worn in new lines of worry and contemplation. The soft light through the rain made them harsher. It made him look sadder than he usually was. 

“I love you,” Merle blurted, leaning forward and crossing his legs. 

For a moment, the sadness was lost in a smile. “I love you, too,” Davenport replied fondly. 

Satisfied, Merle went back to his writing and Davenport turned back to the world outside. The next time he looked up, Davenport was snoring softly, curled near the frosted glass. He set his journal down and hopped off the window seat to find a blanket. At the doorway, he ran into something tall, dark, and handsome. 

“Ah, my apologies, Merle,” Kravitz said awkwardly, steadying Merle with a hand on his shoulder. Slung over one arm was a green, crochet blanket. 

Glaring up automatically, Merle waited for him to move wordlessly. Kravitz coughed once, shifting and seeming all at once smaller than Merle. He seemed to take a deep breath and shoved the blanket into Merle’s hands. “It’s a peace offering. I’m sorry about the arm business,” he nodded weakly, glancing at Merle only once with a look that would make puppies jealous. 

Merle held the blanket out suspiciously. “Where’d you get it?” He squinted at Death who was tugging nervously at his eloquent sleeves. 

“Took it off a necromancer?” That it was a question hardened Merle’s gaze. He wasn’t as susceptible to Kravitz’s charm as Taako or Magnus were. Kravitz cleared his throat. “There’s crochet classes at work,” he relented, looking extremely embarrassed. “Please don’t tell Taako.”

Merle only kept his laughter down for the sake of Davenport napping behind him. “We thought you built battlewagons or something, but instead you knit,” he laughed, not worried how mean it was. “Oh, c’mon, it’s not that bad! You could, I dunno, write terrible poetry about his eyes.”

Kravitz froze and met Merle’s eyes for long enough that Merle realized he _did_ write poems about Taako’s eyes. “Right. I hope you accept my apology and have a fantastic day,” he rushed through, turning on heel and all but fleeing. 

Merle went back to Davenport, throwing the blanket over him and still shaking with suppressed giggles. He resumed his seat, touching the soft yarn appreciatively. It was warm, care having gone into the leaf and floral pattern striping down it. He smiled to himself and picked up his pen. Maybe he wouldn’t exclude Kravitz from his little tale after all. 

“Kravitz don’t open -!” Magnus yelled a few rooms away. 

Merle turned the page as Lucretia walked in slowly, looking behind herself. “They’ll hurt themselves,” she sighed, sitting on the couch with her own journal. 

“Au contraire, sis, I think you mean they’ll hurt each other,” Merle corrected with a small smile. 

Lucretia covered her laugh with one hand and flipped the pages to her bookmark. Outside, the rain battered the windows and the wind howled between the trees. She picked up the poker and stoked the warm fire, spilling more warmth into the room. 

Lup peeked into the room, grinning up at Angus, asleep on top of the bookcase. Merle watched her cast a quiet levitate spell and bring him back to ground. She laid him on the couch facing away from the door and took a seat next to the fire, invisible to anyone passing by. Barry darted past the doorway a moment later with a bucket, water sloshing out the sides. “I can’t find Lup, you guys, but I found a bucket!” 

There was a loud crash and bang, a silver plate rolling past the door. Carey and Killian paused, looking down the hall worriedly, then taking a sharp turn to go help. Noelle sighed, debating, then screwed up her face and followed. 

“- a goldfish? It’s not him, Taako!” Kravitz ranted as he went past the door, Taako snarling right after him. 

“Fuck you, don’t bother coming to -.” 

Quiet reigned for some time until Taako came in sniffling. He went right to Lup’s side. “My son is a goldfish and my boyfriend broke up with me,” he mumbled against her shoulder. 

“Koko, your boyfriend breaks up with you every other week,” she reassured, bookmarking and closing her book. 

Merle sighed, wondering how Taako had missed Angus in a pile of blankets right behind him. Like clockwork, there was a tear in the fabric of spacetime, Kravitz looking out with a bouquet of roses, “Taako, I’m -.”

Taako shot up and shoved him back into the rift with a running hug. It closed behind them and for that, Merle thought they were all thankful. 

“FISHER TALKS FISH!” Magnus yelled, running past with an excited Carey echoing his hollering.


	2. Repaying a Debt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup gives Angus those cookies she promised.

Angus was sitting alone, kicking his feet on one of Taako’s boxes. He was practically drowning under an old, patched up wizard hat with more flower than sense. Lup approached slowly, swinging the repaired umbra staff in circles. She winced when it made a concerning crack. Barry and her had been working to try to repair it, but hadn’t seen any luck yet. 

“Hey there, Angus,” she called cheerfully, putting thoughts of all the things they had to fix aside. It was too much for the Bureau, much less Lup. 

Angus turned, smiling up at her brightly and shoving the brim of the hat back from his face. “Hello, ma’am,” he answered, not an ounce of shyness. 

Lup liked him already, which was good, considering. She picked up the hat by the pointed tip and ruffled Angus’s curly hair. “Someone, little man, told me I have a nephew,” she grinned, setting the hat back down and pulling the edges of the brim so it went past his tiny pointed ears. 

“Hey!” He complained, shoving it back up with a huff. Angus paused, processing what she’d said. Watching the smile break out across his face was worth putting up with Taako’s rushed, snappy request.

“Your new dad said I should keep you occupied while he took care of somethin’ and I thought I owed you some cookies, anyway. Not starting off as a good aunt with a debt to repay, all things considered,” she explained, helpless to smile back in the face of his joy even as her cheeks ached from the effort. 

“W-well, you don’t owe me anything, Lu-, /aunt/ Lup,” Angus grinned, jumping off the box. “I do like cooking, though, so it could be fun. That is, if you think it’s fun, ma’am,” he corrected quickly, staring up at Lup with all the brightness of the sun. 

Lup crossed her arms, shrugging. “I mean, if the debt’s repaid, no point wastin’ my time,” she started, watching his reaction from under her eyelashes. His expression didn’t dim, but it did change. 

“They were good cookies, ma’am, that you destroyed,” he replied, sighing deeply. “The only Candlenights present I really had. I guess you owe me for the emotional trauma, Aunt Lup.”

Grinning, Lup lifted back up his hat and patted him on the head proudly. “That’s my nephew. Take back twice the shit you’re owed, little dude,” she proclaimed proudly, heading towards the shell of a kitchen.


	3. Make Me Cry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fix-it fic I'm not sure I'll ever really get to. I might as well share the first chapters of these parallel and entwined fics. The idea was that Kravitz joined the THB from the start and Lup was saved by Magic Brian, who proceeded to race for the relics with Julia, Magic Brian, and Killian (with Carey working as an insider spy within the BoB).

There are things a man can live through. Magnus Burnsides, age twenty-five, didn’t think that this should be one of them. He could see their home in the wreckage. Its green shingles barely clung to the bay window he’d built for Julia. Howling in the great wail of its survivors and the family of its victims seemed pointless. 

Instead, he lifted planks off of broken legs and picked up stretchers with the living and dead. There were so many people who needed help. His neighbors and friends who were dead or dying. All the while, he kept one word on his lips, “ _Julia? Have you seen Julia?_ ” 

He found his father-in-law and held his hands until the healers said he was gone. 

That was when Magnus let her go, too. She wasn’t the only one missing somewhere in the rubble. What was left of Ravens Roost no longer felt like his without Julia. The villagers pointed the way to Kalen and Magnus rushed into the night with barely an idea of what he was doing. 

There were too many dead ends for Magnus to keep pace. He needed money to keep going and he knew how to fight. The first job he took more out of charity. The village could only offer him a few gold to take care of a necromancer in the caves who was stealing their cattle. 

It shouldn’t have surprised him to find Death looming over the necromancer’s body, a glowing book in hand and his eyes set on Magnus. “Magnus Burnsides,” he intoned, snapping the book shut. “You ought to be dead.”

There are things a man can live through. Magnus Burnsides, age twenty-six, didn’t think that Ravens Roost should have been one of them, but he _had_ lived and he wasn’t going to give that up. He readied himself for a fight, but stopped suddenly and cocked his head.

“Wait. Was this guy playing poker by himself, dude?” 

Death glanced at the table covered with chips and cards, then back to Magnus. “No, he lost to me,” he preened, drawing himself up. “Sadly, beating him wasn’t that hard. Barely worth the deal,” he snorted, kicking the chair so the necromancer’s body toppled out of it.

“Uh,” Magnus muttered, mind working around this one. “So, do you like, gamble for the chance to live and stuff?”

“I might,” Death replied, setting his scythe down and leaning against it. “What did you have in mind?”

_Living_ , Magnus thought, pulling out the deck of cheater’s cards he’d found close to the cave’s entrance.

* * *

Waking up felt like a new experience. Lup hurt everywhere she’d ever had a name for. She groaned in pain, eyes rolling open. A fire crackled in a makeshift bonfire, smoke barely managing through the cracks in the ceiling of the cave. To her right was the persistent drip of water and she was buried under at least five layers of quilts. 

“That’s it,” a man murmured softly, kind hands helping her sit up. “Take it easy,” he insisted when she winced from the pain working up her side. _Where I was stabbed_ , she realized with a start. He held a cup of water to her mouth and helped her drink it down. 

“More,” she mumbled when it was gone. Her throat felt like it was burning with thirst. 

He nodded and went to the side, scooping water from a bucket. “You’re very lucky,” he chirped, putting the water to her lips again. “If anyone else had found you in that stasis, you’d be one dead body,” he laughed, waving his freehand. “Luckily, it was I, the Black Spider who brought you back from the brink of death,” he crowed with a dramatic twirl of his hand going to his chest. 

She laughed weakly and he cracked one of his eyes open to smile at her. 

“Black Spider might be a mouthful for you to say for a few days. You can call me Brian,” he shrugged, scooping up more water. “It’ll feel like marbles in your mouth. That poison does nasty things to a body, but you’ll recover,” he said reassuringly, hands fluttering near her shoulder. 

“Wha-,” she tried, not able to get her tongue around the ‘t’. She tried to point at herself, but barely managed to angle her finger in her general direction. “Lu-puh,” she articulated slowly, making her mouth do what she wanted it to with effort that exhausted her quickly.

“I am most enchanted to meet you, Lup,” he beamed, shaking her hand hard enough her whole body shook with it. “I thought you would starve to death before you woke up. Dodged the Death bullet there, didn’t you, darling?” 

She nodded, distracted by the spider calendar on the wall. Despite how slapped together this place seemed, she could see traces of where it was lived-in. She paused, squinting again at the calendar and trying to put together why it didn’t make sense. When she’d left the Starblaster, it had been April, but this said it was May and the year should have been -.

Oh. 

This would be awkward to explain to everyone.


	4. Stop Looking at Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sad "Kravitz as Keats" introspection. Focused solely on Kravitz.

The curtains blew in the wind. It was an empty room, dust stirring and shifting. Resettling, clinging to the sombre tatters of the life he had lived. Above the mantle was a dirty portrait that barely showed their eyes through the layers of time. Wooden toys sat tidy by a rusted lyre and faded ribbon. A contrast to the rest of the room, torn apart by some haste to get out. Probably the fire that had ruined the back of the house. 

He could feel them, like a flame he found himself circling towards as he paced the room. Invariably, his steps wavered, turned inwards, towards the forest. He huffed, his teeth feeling too big for his mouth. 

The lyre was still here. He picked it up impulsively, stomach growling. They were beyond the reach of him in the traditional sense. There was no saving them. 

Only ending. 

He circled again, turning and twisting in his path. His mind ran wild with what would happen if he failed. If it wasn’t him, it would be someone else, wouldn’t it? 

It was a cruelty for Her to have sent him.

He stopped in his tracks, in front of the portrait. They looked so hopeful and him, between them, a frail child on the doorstep of Death. He looked down at the lyre — his lyre — and forced his mouth closed. Lips over teeth. 

Summoning his book, he tore the page from its golden pages and set it beside the wooden toys in place of the lyre. It faded, blackened, and he didn’t pull his hand away in time not to feel the burn as it caught the toys. 

He turned away and left the house roaring behind him, lyre in hand. 

She would send someone else. Eventually. Whoever it was, She would make it hurt. Kravitz, of all people, knew he would suffer for his disobedience when the time came for Lydia and Edward. 

And he did.

With his hand on the fragile, child’s lyre as the love of his life laughed about destroying the two people who taught him to sing.


	5. Pay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murderquest stuff, talking about murder and revenge.

The rain caught the edges of blooms weeping along the riverbank. The willow tree above them rustled in the downpour, against the edges of the sphere of magic over their heads. Darkness crept across the horizon, settling early over the clearing in the shadow of the forest. Taako set his plate aside and leaned forward on the rock, listening fondly to Lup and Merle’s back-and-forth about what plants would be the most dateable. 

Picking up his knife, Taako sharpened it again. He knew it was as sharp as it could get, but there was no place for mercy when the time came. Even the barest hint of resistance and it wouldn’t go through. He’d killed many people with magic, but he would watch the chance for redemption seep between his fingers. 

Magnus nudged his side and Taako gave an annoyed sort of groan. “Hey Taako,” Magnus hissed, trying to go unnoticed by the others, ensuring he had their full and undivided attention. “What did this guy do?” 

Taako’s ears swiveled forward alertly, then back, pinning against his head. It was a question Taako had hoped he simply wouldn’t ask. It being in the air over the cozy fire meant it would stick with Magnus and bother him. Taako leaned his elbows on his knees. “He hurt someone I love,” he said gently. 

Lup and Merle went quiet to his left and he could feel them watching. Barry even looked up from his maps, food still steaming and untouched beside him.

“Oh,” Magnus managed under the attention, putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. “Are they okay? Your friend.”

It was such a Magnus response that Taako laughed and turned to look at him. Greying at the temples, scarred and worn with deep smile lines. In his hands was a half-carved horse for the orphanage. The big mastiff at his side whined in her sleep and rolled over, on top of her sister. He still wore his wedding ring, but he could touch it and keep laughing. Laugh more, because the joke had reminded him of her and he wanted to remember.

“Yes,” Taako smiled, turning back to the fire. “They’re alright now, but I promised I would do this.”

“Then let’s make this Kalen guy pay,” Magnus cheered with a wicked grin they all echoed in their own hurrahs. The storm outside the willow tree settled for being a soothing melody to the one brewing inside. Rain and darkness and cold could not hope to compete with where love would lay their hands.


	6. I Feel Safe Within the 5 AM Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blupjeans prompt I really enjoyed writing.

“Take my jacket, it’s cold outside,” Lup said softly and held out her denim jacket. Lifted it, slowly, from the bench beside her with a concentrated effort. She took it everywhere with her even though she didn’t need it. Barry took it from her skeletal, barely there fingers. 

“Thanks,” he smiled, breath coming out in puffs of air. 

She looked away, out at the snow scattering across the frozen lake. “Sorry I can’t warm you up myself, babe,” she grinned, hand hovering over his on the bench. 

Barry laughed and looked away, cupping the air where her hand should have been with both of his. “You always warm my heart, Lup,” he offered, tilting his head to look at her over the top rim of his glasses. 

She laughed – delighted – and waved her hand in his vague direction. “Gross,” she teased. She stopped moving and turned towards him, the shadows of her skull disappearing in the rising sun. It painted dawn across her cheekbones in watercolor splotches of reds and pinks and oranges. Almost there, but not quite. 

Barry saw the light within her under the tender fingers of the sun, the golden flame licking up her spine in iridescent, flickering squares beneath her crimson robes. Sparks fluttered rapidly out from under her hood as stop-motion butterflies that disappeared as they soared towards Barry as if drawn by invisible wires. Barry felt tears prick the corner of his eyes. 

After all these years, her heart still reached for his. 

“Gross, but same.”


	7. Me Too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter deals with memory loss due to aging and is a bit angst.

“Stay there. I’m coming to get you,” Lup hissed across the line. 

“Oh no, I think I hear him. Please, Lup, I don’t know how long I can hide and oh no he’s right—,” Taako half-sobbed before the stone died. 

She took a deep breath and dunked her head under the kitchen sink, soaking her face in cold water. She twisted the knob off so sharply, something snapped. “Fuck,” she swore and smacked the counter. 

Not the time, not the time, never the time. 

Another breath. Lup took out her umbrella and carved it through the delicate seams of space. The veil parted like a curtain being drawn across a stage for the start of a show.

Fireflies greeted her with crickets and locusts. Flowers hung in heavy curtains, dripping petals down a serene stream. Lup hopped from stone to stone and across the quaint bridge with sweeps of fairy lights. 

She imagined she could see the imprint of her feet on the path. Slowly, she lifted her hand and pushed aside strings of beads hanging from an archway with the back of her hand. “Taako,” she announced, loud and clear. 

There was a muffled sniff and he burst out from the bushes with a knife he dropped immediately. She let him hug her, sob into her shoulder and felt her head dip ever so slightly. 

It never got easier, did it?

“Take me home, I want to go home,” he blubbered. 

“This is your home, Taako,” she said softly, calmly. 

Taako took a step back, shaking his head violently. “It’s not, it’s not, it’s not,” he insisted, jabbing towards the porch. “He took me. He won’t let me leave and—.” Taako clawed at a bracelet tight around his wrist. “I can’t do magic. Why are you so fuckin’ calm?!”

The kitchen light went on and Kravitz stood in the doorway, haggard and tired. 

He turned towards the light and froze, eyes going wide with fear. Lup took his hand gently. “Trust me,” she murmured. 

“That’s him,” he hissed, turning towards the knife on the ground. 

“I know,” she said and guided him away before he could grab it. He was more than eager to flee out of sight. She sat on the little bridge and dipped her toes in the water. Taako sat beside her cautiously. “How old are you today?”

“Seventy-six,” he answered suspiciously. 

“Mm,” she hummed, leaning her elbows on her knees. Lup wondered if he saw the white of his hair in the reflection of the water. Maybe the crinkles at the corners of his eyes from several lifetimes of smiling or the laugh lines made over a thousand years. 

Kravitz had outwardly aged alongside him, empathetically, he’d said. She suspected something else at play, but had always been too afraid to ask why he never answered bounties anymore. What happened to his scythe? 

What would happen after Taako?

She couldn’t answer that herself even though she’d had more years than she should have to find one. “We’re 1217,” she told him. 

He laughed and sat back. “We both know I won’t ever make it that far,” he grinned, turning his head to the stars. “I’ll wake up in the arms of Death like our Aunt used to say,” he reminded her cryptically, snapping his fingers. “Just like that.”

“Maybe she meant that more literally than we thought,” she snickered despite herself. 

“Then I still got a while to find my Mr. Right Death,” he grinned and laid back on the bridge, hands under his head. “1217? That’s practically on his doorstep and ain’t yet seen the man.”

She looked up at the sound of beads clinking in time to see Kravitz’s hand disappearing behind the curtain. She thought she heard a sob. 

Me too, she thought. Not the time, not the time, never the time. 

They still had more time.


	8. Don't Cry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This deals with Brad Bradson/Johann post-Johann's death.

“Don’t cry,” said a note in neat handwriting burnt at the edges in Lucretia’s office desk. 

“You gave my songs meaning,” said a note squeezed tight in Brad’s hand as Lucretia let him cry into her shoulder. 

“You gave my life meaning,” said a slightly crumpled note on a coffee table next to an upturned bottle of wine. 

“Don’t forget who you were to me if you ever forget me,” said a note held by fading corners by the entrance to a funeral home. 

“I don’t want your misery,” read Brad from a note he’d spread across a lectern in front of a casket. 

“I want the hope that my life meant enough for you to move on,” said a note in a shoebox next to an urn that rattled in the back of a wagon. 

“I hope my songs can decorate the life you build after me,” whispered Brad to a cramped living room of people beneath frames of a family that could never quite be complete again. 

“But I hope you find new songs to dance to, too,” said a note in a box on a bench that stood alone in front of a vast endless ocean and a man with an urn. 

“I know this is short, but we both have better things to do than deal with a novel,” said a note in an album beside two glasses of wine under a soft song. 

“I love you,” said a note next to a velvet box. 

“Yours always,” said a note tucked into Brad’s front suit pocket as he stood nervously in front of a floral arch. 

“Johann,” said a note in a little frame above a mantle surrounded by pictures of the life that came after ‘Don’t cry.’

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to follow my [Tumblr](https://evitcani-writes.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Evit_cani).


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